Microsoft hijack?

[Beautiful Oblivion]

I got a "refurbished" Samsung J7 from amazon. I didn't think to do a factory reset before using. Now my phone is completely outta whack! It does whatever it wants to (ie...changing settings, moving things in/out of secure folder, even altering my password for my Samsung account. I have done a factory reset and things still aren't right. It has all these microsoft apps on it that will not let me erase their data. Yet...they are disabled and still using storage and memory. I downloaded my activity on google last night (on a different device) and found a file that was mining coins for microsoft skydive. Mind you...that app wasn't anywhere on my phone. Then low and behold...after reset. TA-DA there it was. It ordered about $400 worth of microsoft subscriptions...plz help

 

[Hadron]

If you've done a reset and still have problems then it may be that there was something planted in the system software (which isn't affected by a reset). There's really only one way to be sure of that: reflash the phone software completely.

You should be able to find the software at Sammobile.com. It must be for your exact model (not just J7 but the exact model number - you should be able to find that from the settings). You need a PC with some software to do the operation - I can never remember whether it's Kies or Odin you need (I think Odin but I'm sure someone who knows Samsung better than me will be able to provide a definite answer). Reflashing the phone will overwrite the system and remove anything that's been added there. I expect it to reset the phone too, but you can do that separately anyway.

You also want to secure your other accounts. I'd sign out of them and remove them from the phone before flashing the phone, then change passwords and enable two factor authentication (if you do a factory reset without removing the Google account from the phone first and then change password on your Google account you will be caught by the "factory reset protection" system. And if the phone is infected the accounts may be compromised too, so you don't want to just reconnect without securing them first). I'd be wary of what I re-downloaded from those accounts - possibly better not to let them reinstall apps and data automatically.